


Following the Railroad Through Kessel

by MarieTheWriter9813, Nightingalewritings, spaghett



Series: The Alorr’ika Chronicles [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cal Kestis Needs a Hug, Child Cal Kestis, Death Watch (Star Wars), F/M, Force-Sensitive Shmi Skywalker, Good Parent Jango Fett, Mandalorian Shmi Skywalker, Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Mentions of Death Watch, Non-Sexual Slavery, Planet Kessel (Star Wars), Shmi runs the Underground Railroad with Jango, We created our own mythology just for this, Working songs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarieTheWriter9813/pseuds/MarieTheWriter9813, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightingalewritings/pseuds/Nightingalewritings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaghett/pseuds/spaghett
Summary: Slavery is illegal, but that doesn't stop it from happening right under the Republic's noses.  Good thing there are still people in the galaxy who actually care.
Relationships: Jango Fett/Shmi Skywalker
Series: The Alorr’ika Chronicles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652077
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	Following the Railroad Through Kessel

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, okay, this was a wild ride from start to finish to write with everyone.

Deep down in the mines, a small, pale, auburn haired girl labored away in the heat and the grime, sweat caking her unnaturally skinny body as she swung the pickax with almost inhuman strength for one so small. It was all a test at this point for her, a test to see how long she could sustain herself with the Force before her body gave out. Chunks of rock flew past her as she swung again and again, the chains and collar a part of her as she carved out new routes to mine for the raw materials to make drugs and medicine.

 _Another cog in the murder machine_ , the young girl thought to herself grimly, panting as she worked well beyond her natural limits. The heat's oppressive touch, her bonds, and the sting of an electro-whip were the only constants in her life, a far cry from the comfortable, cushy Temple life she had known before her kidnapping and selling. Something she wished she had not taken for granted in her short seven years of living in such luxury.

She had lost track of how long she had worked the mines. Time worked differently with such a routine. Days and nights blended into nothing but longing for real food and real sleep, defying everyone's expectations on how long she would survive, quietly learning the tales of her people and the tales that only slaves knew from those that dared to talk to her, and singing songs of freedom with other slaves as they pounded their pickaxes away.

A life destined to work in the mines until her death.

_I'm goin' down to the bottom, let your hammer ring..._

__

_I'm goin' down to the bottom, let your hammer ring..._

__

The words were a chant. A beat of which those around the small girl kept time and rhythm. Hand gripped wooden poles, blood dripped from between grimy knuckles.

_A-just to ring my hammer..._

A steady drip.. drip.. drip.. added another layer to the song.

_I got a nine-pound hammer..._

__

_I'm gonna ring it in the bottom..._

__

Muscle tensing. Axe swung upwards. Grip tightened, and the muscles contracted, letting the heavy weight of the metal be pulled back with gravity.

_Well my partner's got worried..._

__

_I can't hear my partner's holler..._

__

Up.... pause.... down... thud...

Glint, flash, pause. Thud repeat. The rhythm drove them forwards. Words chanted in multiple voices and accents.

_I'm gonna call a little louder..._

__

__

_I'm goin' down to the Bra-lo..._

The girl's chest heaved. Hair hung in her eyes. She was the only one who didn't bother to sing the words. Her rhythm was different. Off beat to the others. Her movements were to a different song, one that no one else could hear. But still steadily all of them pressed forward.

Deeper. And deeper into the tunnels. Too afraid to stop their work. Too afraid of the guards and the patrols then they were falling over dead.

If they fell, they got back up. And those that didn't... they were carried and dumped into the same cart the ore went into. And a new being took their place.

Repeatable.

Rhythmic.

_Oh just to cool my hammer…_

Replaceable.

She knew that she wasn’t supposed to hate. Hate the work. Hate her enslavement. Hate the masters. Hate the whip and it's cruel burn. Hate the stench of death and spice. Hate. Hate.

Hate.

She did her best not to think of these things. They only drew her closer and closer to the dark.

Her song was silent though it rang through her very soul.

**I am one with the Force.**

She was a child of the Force. Someone who could wield the energy that runs through the very fabric of the universe.

**The Force is with me.**

Her song was both a comfort and a promise. Her song promised her that it would not be like this forever. Even if the pain ended with her death, she would be at peace in being one with the Force. It was also a damn promise. Maybe not while she still breathed. But these evil men would get what was coming to them. _The Force was with her._

On and on and on she continued, pounding away at speeds that shouldn't have been possible for one working in the mines for so long.

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

**I am one--**

****

Screams erupted from what sounded like a new voice, the familiar crack of the whip and the familiar smell of sizzling Twi'lek flesh filling the already dank, rancid air. The smell of sweat, body odor, and unwashed sentients being joined with the metallic tang of blood as well as the burnt flesh. The sudden change in the atmosphere throwing Bes off of her rhythm as she felt wrath unlike any before rising inside of her. The heat in her blood rose and the Force bowed to her rage as she fought to keep herself from reacting, knowing that any sudden movements would result in a shock that would incapacitate her for the next week.

Each pound that resounded through the mine was perfectly timed with each strike of the electro-whip.

Angry tears welled up in the bright aqua eyes of the girl whose name had been buried deep inside her long ago to survive.

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

**I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.**

****

_Give me a tool and I'll make you a hole._

__

_Dirt in my brow but steel in my soul_

__

The songs around her shifted. The hours had crept by and shifted. The suns and the moons had rotated overhead. Not that any of them could tell. They were too far underground. Too far focused on their work and the endless crack of a whip over their head. 

Twi'leks bleed just the same as humans and basilisk. No one cared who was bleeding. Not in that moment.

They cared only for the crack on the whip, sending a sharp focused pain of colors and sound into their bodies. They cared only for the few endless footfalls forward they would make in the span of endless hours. Work that kept them alive.. but not really. This isn't living. This was a working death.

_Picking up spice and picking up speed_

__

_Shovel as much as the Master needs_

__

A small pale creature. One who was carting off rows and rows of spice that Bes had tumbled free from the walls of the tunnel, dodged in between carts of overflowing spice headed back up. Bright red hair darted in between slaves and tools, tossing the raw spice into the carts, filling them and sending them on their way, bright green eyes surveying his surroundings.

_Ain't nothing gonna stand in our way_

__

_Picking up rock and shoveling dust._

__

_Just pray we don't sell out to Inkua_

__

The gods protected them. That's what the slaves told themselves. Osupa was on her way. She just hasn't found them yet. They were too far beneath. Too far into An'Laat's territory for their Goddess to come. But one day. One day she was bound to free them. They just had to keep toiling away til she got to them.

_Picking up rock and shoveling dust._

__

_Shovel as much as the master needs_

__

_Sweat and blood gonna earn my keep_

__

_All the way to Bra-lo Way_

__

_If I should fall, leave me where I lay._

__

For once, the girl joined in with the singing, the thrumming of the beat speaking to her in a way that the other slave songs didn't. Stamps slowly joined in with the pounding of the pickaxes, the resounding sound of their singing filling up the void, drowning out the sound of the cracking of the whips.

_Way, oh, down in the mine._

__

_Picking up rock and shoveling dust,_

__

_Shovel as much as the master needs,_

__

_Ain't no way we're going to get away,_

__

_All the way to Bra-lo Way._

__

The pace went faster and faster as they pounded away, the girl using the wrath she felt to fuel her speed as her heart pounded in her ears. Inside, the Force screamed at the suffering of everyone around her, the anguish of Jedi past resounding in her ears and continuing to fuel her work.

_Master says a klick-a-day's the pace,_

__

_I'll make two for the look on his face,_

__

_Way, oh, down in the mine,_

__

_Picking up rock and shoveling dust,_

__

_Shovel as much as the master needs,_

__

_Ain't no way we're going to get away,_

__

_All the way to Bra-lo Way._

Shmi felt the shudder beneath the soles of her feet. It echoed that of her beating heart. Only the rhythm was off. It wasn't that if a slave's well known song of despair. It was not the euphoric heat and the soaking- sapping heat of the burning sand and suns that called to Shmi for most of her life.

The colors were too bright. Too angry. They trembled and danced. Spun and shook with a fury deep deep in her bones. In a part of her, Shmi hadn't felt in a long time.

This was the anger of Galidraan that she remembered.

This was a slave who wasn't supposed to be a slave.

_Low_

_Low_

_Keep your head low._

_Hold on_

_Hold on_

_Keep your hands holding on_

_Wanna get to the river I'ma tell you how_

_Keep that hand on the gospel plow_

_Just keep that hand on the plow hold on_

Shmi's heart beat. It thudded and it thundered. Her vision narrowed from the poorly lit up smuggler's den.

It wavered and it collapsed.

It solidified into a tunnel of rock and dirt.

A ringing of metal echoed in and out.

The girl's vision started to swim for the first time in years, the tunnel prison fading out to become a smuggler's den as she continued to pound away at the unforgiving rock and dirt. The ringing of metal against stone faded away, the soft, melodious sound of real music filling her ears for the first time since she had been taken away.

A harsh reminder that life had gone on without her.

Soft, exotic cloths and furs surrounded her as she ran her fingers through something that wasn't the rough youngling robes or the itchy, lice-filled blankets for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. This wasn't her sight, far from it. This was the sight of someone who controlled the Force just like her not far from her tunnel, someone that she didn't know.

Tears of sadness and anger welled up in the girl's eyes. She wished there was a way to cry out and say that there were people that needed saving. To say that they didn't belong here. It filled her with rage like never before, knowing that there was someone who could control the Force, but would probably never save her so nearby.

The sound of drums filled her ears as she returned to that dirt filled mine, the music of her people fueling her to keep going.

Shmi took a step forward into the kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and emotions. She felt these beings who held pain and their suffering. She saw it all. She saw the way the dirt hung in the air for precious seconds. Her lungs were inhaling. The sound of an axe and its echoing clang getting paused. She saw the tumbling of a child halt in mid air. 

The world around Shmi slowed. It felt like she was looking at this tunnel of hate and despair through water. Thick water that muffled everything.

And then with a blinding snapping _shhffrittt_ , Shmi was once more standing beside Jango.

Her hands grasped cold beskar plating as she tumbled forwards just slightly. Losing her balance for precious seconds she hadn't lost in years.

 _What in the Goddess?_ She thought, hauling her spine in a straight stacked line of vertebra.

There were slaves underground. And the Goddess had shown Shmi where to go to find them.

 _They call us Walkers of the Skies, child. You know why?_ An elderly voice whispered in Shmi's ear from ages past.

_No, Busa. Why do they call us Skywalker?_

_Because we lead our people back to the skies. We lead them home where our goddess can shine upon them once more. That is our duty, Little One._

The pounding of the drums got louder and louder, drowning the sound of everything else for the girl as her blood roiled and coursed faster and faster in her veins. Whispers filled her ears, somehow heard over the sound of the drums as they egged her anger on.

_You know what you need to do, child. You know what you need to do to save these people. Fulfill your life's purpose, young Kryze._

_Bathe this sand in blood and paint them redder than the blade of the Sith._

A scream erupted from the girl's core, the Force screaming with her as she found the strength to unlock her collar before throwing her pickax at the closest slaver. Whips stung her back from the other slavers, but she didn't feel a thing as she threw them with the Force. She grabbed her pickax again, continuing to scream as she broke the chains of her fellow slaves.

_Make your ancestors proud, young Kryze. Become the warrior you were meant to be._

The last thing she remembered was a whip electrocuting her until she went down.

__


End file.
